POACHING SHELL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22499, 17 August 1936, Page 6

POACHING SHELL

JAPANESE SAMPANS NEW CALEDONIAN WATERS [from oub own* correspondent] SYDNEY, August 10 A prominent business man of Noumea, New Caledonia, who is \isiting Sydney, Mr. Paul Constans, said in an interview that the operations of Japanese sampans in search of valuable trochns shell on the coast of New Caledonia were causing much perturbation iher£. It was announced a few days ago that two sampans had been captured and confiscated with their fishing gear and shell, by order of the Court at Noumea, after a fine of £6O had been imposed on each master. New Caledonia, it was explained, covered an area about 500 miles long and 50 miles wide. Surrounding it were reefs, about 10 miles off the land. Between thp reefs and the land, the paters contained valuable shell, for which the sampans were fishing. Several hundred families in New Caledonia were entirely dependent for their living on this" valuable source of submarine ivealth. Since the sampans began operations some places along the coast had been stripped of the shell. The regulations provided that those residents engaged in the industry under special permits must take shell only of a specific size, in order to preserve the industry, but the Japanese not only secured shell in those waters in contravention of international regulation®, but also picked tip shells of any size, thus menacing the industry with its ultimate extinction. The position, Mr. Constans stated, had assumed such serious dimensions that the Governor of the colony had cabled to the Minister for the Colonies in Paris directing attention to New Caledonia's unprotected coastline and etronplv urging the necessity of the establishment of a military seaplane ha«e as a coastguard. "The captain of one sampan," said Mr. Constans. "stated that he had fished for shell, not off New Caledonia, but off the Great Barrier Reef. If that is so, then the position concerns Australia also. It is impossible fot these sampans to operate alone; they must "be accompanied by a mother ship, with a fairly clear indication that the vessels havp their base right up north, on ione of the small islands off New Caledonia. Public opinion in New Caledonia Se demanding measures for the protection of the coast to prevent the pillaging of the reefs.''